Friday, 28 September 2012

KICK-ASS

Idea:

The idea for the Kick-Ass movie came from the comic book series written by Mark Millar. It was published by Marvel Comics and illustrated by John Romita Jr. The comic-book series is about Dave Lizewski, a teenager who sets out to become a real-life superhero and ends up by being internet famous.

Finance:

Budget: $30 million

Total income: $96,188,903

Matthew Vaughn went around, securing independent financing. But now that it’s received a positive response at Comic Con; Lionsgate, Paramount, and Universal are all making bids for distribution. The rights to a film version of the comic book were sold before the first issue of the comic book was published.

Script Development:

Vaughn: "We wrote the script and the comic at the same time so it was a very sort of collaborative, organic process. I met [Millar] at the premiere of Stardust. We got on really well. I knew who he was and what he had done but I didn't know him. He pitched me the idea. I said, 'That's great!' He then wrote a synopsis. I went, 'That's great, let's go do it now! You write the comic, I'll write the script.'"

Jane Goldman one of the screenwriters, said that when she works with Vaughn she does the "construction work" and the "interior designing" while Vaughn acts as the "architect."

Seven American film studios turned down the script before Vaughn released it through his own production company. Vaughn initially went to Sony, but he rejected calls to tone down the violence.

Other studios expressed interest but wanted to make the characters - in particular studios Hit-Girl's character - into adults. Whilst studio executives said that it would be less offensive to portray Hit-Girl as a teenager, Goldman argued that it would have been more offensive since, as a teenager, Hit-Girl would have been sexualized. Goldman said that Hit-Girl was not supposed to be sexualized.

Aaron Johnson and Chloë Grace Moretz were cast as Kick-ass and Hit-Girl and a cameo from Nicholas Cage was included as the character Big Daddy.

Production:

The big studios doubted the success of an adaptation as a violent superhero, which made the film be independently financed, but this gave him the freedom to make the film the way he imagined, without having to worry about high-censorship. Vaughn believed enough in the project to raise the money himself, with the help of co-producer Brad Pitt.Christopher Mintz-Plasse, (Red Mist), said that the creators of the film were wondering whether a distributor would pick up the movie. On the set Vaughn jokingly referred to Kick-Ass as something that was going to be "the most expensive home movie I ever made."

Filming locations include Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Dip 'N' Sip Donuts on Kingston Road in Toronto,Sir Winston Churchill Secondary Schooland "many Toronto landmarks that play cameos"; and various locations in the UK, including Elstree Studios. The opening sequence with Nicolas Cage was filmed in a sewage plant in East London.

The 2D/3D animated comic book sequence in the film took almost two years to finish. Romita created the pencils, Tom Palmer did the inks, and Dean White did the colours.

In an interview with Total Film, Aaron Johnson confirmed that the film stays true to the adult nature of the comic book series by featuring a large amount of profanity and graphic violence. It received a 15 rating from the BBFC. Director Matthew Vaughn felt the 15 certificate was about right and expressed some surprise at the film having received a "PG rating" in France.

Production companies involved in making the film were Marv films and Plan B entertainment. Distributors then included institutes such as Universal pictures, Paramount and Warner pictures.

A teaser trailer was shown and this caused some controversy because of the explicit language used by Chloe (Hit-girl). An international trailer was then released and shown around the world.

Marketing:

Posters were put up in bus stations, magazines and and trailers were shown on TV. Empire and Total Film magazine covered the film and it's journey from page to screen and film reviews are on their websites also. The film was also pitched at San Diego Comic-con and the Empire magazine Movie-Con.

Exhibition:

A premier was held in London for the film and the cast plus other guests - including Brad Pitt- arrived to promote the movie.

Kick-Ass made £3,881,704 (UK) on the opening weekend (4 April 2010) and it was shown on 402 Screens across the country.

It was shown on 5778 screens across the world on the opening weekend alone.

All Critics

Top Critics

Audience

76% (235 reviews)

67% (39 reviews)

83% (211,361 reviews)

(Taken from Rotten Tomatoes/ wikipedia)

Chris Hewitt of Empire magazine gave the film 5/5 and declared it, "A ridiculously entertaining, perfectly paced, ultra-violent cinematic rush that kicks the places other movies struggle to reach.The film's violence is clearly fantastical and cartoonish and not to be taken seriously."

In an interview, Matthew Vaughn said, "There is about 18 minutes of deleted footage, which is really good stuff." The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 3 August 2010 in North America, selling 1.4 million copies within its first week, one-third of these in Blu-ray format. Kick-Ass debuted at number one on the DVD sales chart and the discs were released in the United Kingdom on 6 September 2010.

Other Windows:

A video game produced by WHA Entertainment and Frozen Codebase was released through the App Store on 15 April 2010. The game was released on PlayStation Network on 29 April 2010.

The film has been nominated and has won several awards for Best British film, Best newcomer and more, with Chloe Moretz winning four of them for her performance.

Kick-Ass 2

It was reported that Universal will be distributing Kick-Ass 2.

"The costumed high-school hero Kick-Ass joins with a group of normal citizens who have been inspired to fight crime in costume. Meanwhile, the Red Mist plots an act of revenge that will affect everyone Kick-Ass knows." -Synopsis

The same cast will be returning, plus a few new faces. Matthew Vaughn had chosen Jeff Wadlow, who also co-wrote the script along with Vaughn, to direct the sequel with filming planned to begin in September 2012.